دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی دینامیک ساعت های کار والدین، امنیت شغلی و مشکلات رفتاری کودک در خانواده ها - اشپرینگر 2017

Abstract

We test whether parental employment conditions are associated with child behavioural problems in 6674 Australian dual-earner families. Using mixed-effects panel models and three waves of data from two cohorts of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, we find longer maternal work hours and lower paternal job security are associated with greater child behavioural problems, even in our select, relatively privileged sample of dual-earner families. We find some variations in results depending on whether child behaviour is reported by primary carers (in most cases mothers) or teachers. This suggests potential reporter bias or differences in child behaviour across contexts. Further, we find less consistent support for within-child variation in behavioural problems explained by changes in parental employment conditions within families, nor do we find differences in the association between parental employment conditions and child behaviour as the child ages over a fouryear period. This highlights that much of the variation in child behaviour is explained by differences in parental employment conditions across families.

4 Discussion

Employment has undergone important changes in recent decades including the move towards increasing job insecurity of the workforce given the rise of precarious employment and increased employment of mothers. Dual-earner households are now the norm in Australia including in families with children (Baxter and Strazdins 2013). While research has focused on the effects of unemployment and adverse employment conditions, such as high job insecurity or long work hours on workers themselves, increasingly studies are also documenting their effects on children (Kalil et al. 2014). There is an emerging literature linking parental work characteristics and child wellbeing (Strazdins et al. 2010), but few studies have focused on dual earner families and few have data with reports of child behaviour from more than one source. In this paper, we contribute to the existing literature in three ways. First, we draw on a rich longitudinal data source which provides information on both mothers’ and fathers’ employment across multiple years to test within and between effects of parental employment conditions on child behavioural problems. Our approach enables adjustment for unmeasured heterogeneity and thus minimizes some potential errors in our results. Second, we focus on dual-earner families with children, a family type that now comprises the majority of Australian families with children (Baxter and Strazdins 2013). Further, given that dual-income families are on average better off than single earner families given their higher household income, we provide insight into whether economic resources help buffer the commonly observed link between unfavorable parental work conditions and worse child behaviour. Third, we examine both parents’ (in our case, primarily mothers) and teachers’ rating of child behavioural problems. Doing so allows us to test whether the relationship between parental employment conditions and child behaviour is observed both inside and outside the home environment. It also allows us to consider the possibility of common methods bias, as parents who may experience higher work stress may report higher child behavioural problems, or variations in child behaviour across context.